Crews working round the clock to restore power

The perfect power-line disaster left nearly one-third of the Hudson Valley eating dinner in the dark Sunday.

Michael Novinson

The perfect power-line disaster left nearly one-third of the Hudson Valley eating dinner in the dark Sunday.

Three to four inches of rain across the region oversaturated the ground and weakened tree roots, said Central Hudson spokesman John Maserjian.

Then, sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph and heavy gusts throughout the afternoon caused lots of trees to topple, often into power lines.

The result?

More than 96,000 of the nearly 300,000 electric customers in Ulster, Orange and Sullivan counties lost power.

Officials from Central Hudson, NYSEG and Orange and Rockland all said it would take at least "several days" to get everyone's lights back on.

Nearly two-thirds of the region's power outages occurred in Ulster County, where all of the major rivers reached at least three feet above flood levels.

This caused some trees along the banks to crash, often into wires.

More than two-thirds of Ulster's electric customers are without power. The core of the Rondout Valley — Hurley, Marbletown, Rochester and Rosendale — was entirely in the dark.

Outage levels in Orange and Sullivan counties were around 15 percent as of Sunday evening.

Roughly 150 Orange and Rockland crews began restoration work Sunday afternoon, but progress was slow, said spokeswoman Maria Pollard. Nearly every time the lights went on in one part of the region, heavy winds caused trees to tumble somewhere else.

Crews from all three electricity companies spent much of the day clearing live wires and trees from the roads and hoped to finish their damage assessments by the end of the night.

Restoration work will begin in earnest Monday — and if the challenges in the Ulster town of Rochester are any measure, it will be a tough slog.

The raging Rondout Creek flooded the streets of Accord and divided the town of Rochester into two, said Supervisor Carl Chipman.

Gaps existed where bridges over small streams used to sit, and town highway crews tried to aid emergency vehicle access by attempting to clear a single lane of the major thoroughfares.

Town officials will have to wait for the Rondout to recede below flood levels before undertaking major repairs. But that isn't expected to happen until Monday evening.

mnovinson@th-record.com

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